After August 2020’s release of the visa bulletin, there was much anticipation for the September 2020 visa bulletin. Having seen a significant jump in cut-off dates, petitioners in the employment based categories for the immigrant visa were expecting a continuation of the upward trend in the September visa bulletin as well, only to be disappointed.

There has been no significant movement in any of the employment based categories for next month except a couple of weeks in the EB-1 category. Seeing how these numbers may plateau as this fiscal year nears end on September 30, 2020, everyone is going to pin their hopes against the additional green cards made available for the next year.

While the agency established the Employment-based preference’s numerical limitation to 156,253 immigrant visas this year, next year there could be an additional 100,000 green cards available. This is owed to the fact that President Trump signed an executive order preventing any new green card applicants from outside the US from entering the country until December 31, 2020. This has resulted in the slowdown in family-based immigrant visa processing in FY 2020, which is then made available to the employment-based limit in FY 2021.

While most US consulates abroad have resumed in-person operations, local conditions and norms prevent full service resumption. However, the proclamation continues to limit the issuance of immigrant visas abroad.

August 2020 Visa Bulletin

The current cut off numbers for September 2020 Visa Bulletis are as follows:

• EB-1: India & China advance by three weeks to March 1, 2018. ROW will remain current in September.
• EB-2: No movement for India & China. ROW remains current. 
• EB-3 Professional and Skilled Workers: No movement for India & China or the ROW. 
• EB-5: India remains current, as do the ROW countries. China’s date moves forward to August 15, 2015. 

To understand comparison to the stellar progress in the previous visa bulletin, check out the cut off dates in the August 2020 Visa Bulletin.

The last visa bulletin USCIS accepted adjustment applications based on the Final Action dates chart. Until the agency specifically clarifies, the September Dates for Filing cutoff will remain the same as that of August.